rights

Aug 27, 2019

"A gender-equal society would be one where the word 'gender' does not exist: where everyone can be themselves."

MAYA ANGELOU​---

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

Dick Gregory ----"To mute the slave has always been to the best interests of the​slave owner ... When a Black voice is raised in protest to oppression, those who are comfortable with our oppression are the first to criticize us for daring to speak out against it."

​Harry Belafonte

​in a country built on genocide and slavery, the denial or civil and human rights is common

Susan Opotow asserts that:Moral exclusion occurs when individuals or groups are perceived as outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply. Those who are morally excluded are perceived as nonentities, expendable, or undeserving. Consequently, harming or exploiting them appears to be appropriate, acceptable, or just.

Richard Wolff: ​A capitalism that perpetuates itself via racism incurs huge self-protection costs: to police and imprison or to provide some safety nets for its shock absorber "races" or varying combinations of both. When capitalists shift some or all of those costs onto the tax obligations of workers, more social tensions emerge. Workers are then told their tax payments must compensate for the "deficiencies" attributed to the shock absorber "races" rather than to the structural irrationalities of capitalism. Racial conflicts then preclude or tear apart working-class political unity. Racism persists in no small part because its benefits to capitalism outweigh its costs, or at least those costs capitalists have to bear.​-------------------------------------------------

Here’s What Nobody Understands About Race in America

“This has strong implications if we’re looking at racial and ethnic differences in the accumulation of wealth,” Darity observes. “This can be tied to — especially if we’re thinking about black/white differences — the long-term consequences of enslavement; the Jim Crow period; and social policies that created wealth for whites but didn’t do so for blacks, like the GI Bill and the subsidization of the purchases of homes with public funds which is disproportionately made available to whites.” (Black veterans had limited choices of colleges and often could not take advantage of the GI housing provisions.)

William Darity, Jr., ​Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University

Frederick Douglass: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong that will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical.”

Federal judge blocks restrictive Missouri abortion law

Reuters​AUGUST 27, 2019

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Missouri from enforcing a law banning abortion in the state after eight weeks except in cases of medical emergency.

The law was set to take effect on Wednesday, but U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs in Kansas City ruled that the state not enforce it, pending litigation or further order of the court, according to a court document.

The ban, like others by U.S. states this year, was written in the knowledge it would likely be struck down but with the hope it would prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to review its landmark 1973 decision protecting abortion rights.

“While federal courts should generally be very cautious before delaying the effect of State laws, the sense of caution may be mitigated when the legislation seems designed, as here, as a protest against Supreme Court decisions,” the judge wrote.

The hostility to, and refusal to comply with, the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence is most obviously demonstrated in the attempt to push ‘viability’ protection downward in various weekly stages to 8 weeks.”

Women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued Missouri last month over the law, which also bans abortions sought on the grounds of the fetus’ race, sex or disability and makes it a felony for doctors to perform abortions in violation of the law.

Planned Parenthood’s Missouri clinic and the ACLU have argued the law will cause “significant and irreparable constitutional, medical, emotional” harm to patients in that state, who may not even know they are pregnant at eight weeks, according to court documents.

The law declares Missouri to be a “sanctuary of life” that protects “pregnant women and their unborn children.” It does not make exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and it includes a provision that would trigger a statewide abortion ban if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which established a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.

​Abortion is one of the most divisive political issues in the United States. Several conservative states have passed restrictive laws on abortion in 2019 to try to make the Supreme Court revisit the constitutional issue.

Missouri has been at the center of the nation’s escalating abortion debate, as Planned Parenthood is fighting a state health department decision not to renew the license of the provider’s clinic in St. Louis, the only abortion clinic in the state.

The Trump administration wants to make it easier to fire women who act too ‘masculine’May the Lord open.

​IAN MILLHISER - ThinkprogressAUG 20, 2019, 8:00 AM

​Thirty years ago, in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the Supreme Court held that “sex stereotyping” is forbidden by a federal law banning employment discrimination. “We are beyond the day,” Justice William Brennan wrote in the court’s plurality opinion, “when an employer could evaluate employees by assuming or insisting that they matched the stereotype associated with their group.”

Nevertheless, the Trump administration filed a brief last week asking the Supreme Court to bring back the day when an employer could evaluate employees by assuming or insisting that they matched the stereotype associated with their group.

The Trump Justice Department’s position in R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOCwouldn’t nuke Price Waterhouse entirely. But it would severely weaken protections against sex discrimination, and give employers broad new authority to fire employees who do not comply with stereotypes about how people of a particular gender should appear.

It would do so, moreover, in service of the broader goal of denying civil rights protections to transgender workers. The thrust of the Trump administration’s position in Harris Funeral Homes is that, if existing law is broad enough to protect trans workers from discrimination, then that law must be rolled back — even if doing so will legalize a fair amount of discrimination against cis women in the process.

“Because of . . . sex”Harris Funeral Homes involves Aimee Stephens, a trans woman who was fired because of her decision to transition. Her former boss claims to “believe that the Bible teaches that a person’s sex is an immutable God-given gift.”

​In response to her termination, Stephens sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides that employers may not “discharge any individual…because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

Thus, as a textual matter, Stephens should have an easy case. Title VII’s language is capacious. It forbids any discrimination “because of” an employee’s “sex” (a term that, in this context, refers to gender). As the federal appeals court that ruled in her favor explained, “it is analytically impossible to fire an employee based on that employee’s status as a transgender person without being motivated, at least in part, by the employee’s sex.”

The entire reason why Stephens was fired is that her employer believes that she is a man, and that men must dress and act a certain way. That’s discrimination because of sex.

StereotypingSetting aside this simple, textual argument explaining why Stephens should prevail, she also benefits from the separate line of cases prohibiting sex stereotyping — or, at least, she does under those cases as they currently stand.

Price Waterhouse is a bit of a confusing decision because it did not produce a single majority opinion. Nevertheless, a majority of the Supreme Court clearly agreed that sex stereotyping is not allowed. Brennan concluded, on behalf of himself and three other justices, that “Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes.'”

Meanwhile, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that the plaintiff in Price Waterhouse could proceed with her lawsuit because she proved that “stereotypical attitudes towards women [played] a significant, though unquantifiable, role” in her employer’s decision not to make her a partner. So Brennan’s opinion plus O’Connor’s opinion equals five votes against sex stereotyping in the workplace.

Significantly, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a dissenting opinion, in which he argued that “Title VII creates no independent cause of action for sex stereotyping.” Though Kennedy conceded that “evidence of use by decisionmakers of sex stereotypes is, of course, quite relevant to the question of discriminatory intent,” his dissenting opinion denied that sex stereotyping alone is a valid basis for a Title VII lawsuit.

Which brings us to the Trump administration’s argument in is Harris Funeral Homes brief:

Stephens’s and the Sixth Circuit’s sex-stereotyping argument rests on the incorrect premise that Price Waterhouse construed Title VII to prohibit sex stereotypes per se. But that case, which produced no majority opinion, merely recognized that a plaintiff can use evidence that an employer engaged in sex stereotyping to show that the employer discriminated because of sex under the ordinary Title VII rubric. It did not recognize sex stereotyping as a novel, freestanding category of Title VII liability.

See the problem here? This passage does not describe the majority’s view in Price Waterhouse at all. To the contrary, it’s the exact same view that Justice Kennedy took in dissent.

Having confused the majority’s view with a dissent, the Trump administration then claims that much of Price Waterhouse must be rolled back.

Indeed, it’s notable that the Trump administration is only able to cite one lower court opinion that supports its novel view of Price Waterhouse, and that opinion is a concurring opinion by Judge James Ho — a Trump judge known for writing aggressive opinions that read more like Fox News editorials than like judicial decisions. The Ho opinion that Trump’s Justice Department relies upon does not cite any other case that shares his reading of Price Waterhouse.

Price Waterhouse, moreover, is hardly an obscure case. It is a seminal decision that recognized an entire branch of American civil rights law. According to the legal research database Lexis Advance, 6,265 court decisions cite Price Waterhouse. The fact that Judge Ho (and the Trump administration) wasn’t able to find a single one that supports his reading of Price Waterhouse is compelling evidence that Ho is wrong.It’s unclear just how drastically the Trump administration’s reading of Price Waterhousewould roll back protections for women generally, but one line in their brief suggests that the rollback would be quite significant. Unless Price Waterhouse is read narrowly, the Trump Justice Department warns, “a dress code that required men to wear neckties, for example, would be susceptible to challenge as predicated on sex stereotypes.”

Perhaps. A prototypical example of sex stereotyping is declaring that men must look a certain way and women must look another way (although some lower courts permit gender-specific dress codes so long as they are “equally burdensome” on men and women). At the very least, the Trump administration appears eager to strip all American workers of their right to keep their job even if they don’t tailor their appearance to their employer’s gender norms.

One lesson of Harris Funeral Homes, in other words, is likely to be that the fate of various civil rights plaintiffs are unavoidably linked. Denying trans workers the right to be free of employment discrimination means rolling back doctrines that protect other workers as well.

If the Supreme Court joins the Trump administration’s crusade against trans rights, the consequences will spill over to all workers.

August 14, 2019 ​By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement - Raw Story

​The Trump Dept. of Labor on Wednesday has just announced a new rule that would effectively codify the right of “religion-exercising organizations” that are federal contractors to discriminate against LGBTQ workers. The new proposal appears to be a roadmap faith-based organizations claiming to have religious beliefs or moral convictions can use to protect themselves from charges of discrimination.

“Federal contractors will get a clearer picture of religious defenses to workplace discrimination claims under a proposed rule the Labor Department will announce today,” Bloomberg Law reports. “The proposal would cement current exemptions that ‘religion-exercising organizations’ can use to shield themselves from bias claims for hiring decisions and other actions motivated by religious belief.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump and his administration have worked to reduce, roll back, rescind, or turn on their head rules, policies, and regulations that promote equal treatment for members of the LGBTQ community, most of which were implemented under the Obama administration.

The new proposal appears to misinterpret and apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop, which the Court made clear applied only to that case.

News of the the new proposal comes just one day after it was reported the Dept. of Justice is attempting to strong-arm the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to reverse up to eight years of findings, rulings, and policies that make clear anti-LGBT discrimination is sex discrimination, and thus illegal. The DOJ is urging the EEOC to tell to U.S. Supreme Court it is legal to discriminate against LGBT – and especially transgender – workers.

​The Trump administration has been actively welcoming people of faith and broadly-defined religious organizations to file accounts of being discriminated against with various federal agencies.

​However, without examining why someone might wait decades to report a sexual assault, why sexual offenders are often not held accountable, and why so few resources are devoted to rape prevention, I believe that increasing – but not eliminating – time limits will not help most victims heal or access justice.

Barriers to reporting sexual assaultThere are many reasons victims choose not to report an attack immediately, or ever.

Among assaults that were reported more than two days after the incident, only 5% resulted in conviction. Rape cases without evidence from a sexual assault forensic exam resulted in conviction just 3% of the time.

It is more typical for cases to have little-to-no evidence, especially if it is years or decades after an attack.

Civil vs. criminal options for victimsIn criminal court, the standard for conviction is to demonstrate that the abuse happened “beyond a reasonable doubt.” That’s difficult to do when victims do not report promptly or when there is no DNA collected or evidence of injury.

In the criminal system, a conviction means the defendant serves time in prison or jail, is put on probation or must register as a sex offender. But once charges are filed, the case is not in the victim’s control.

​New York’s Child Victims Act, and similar reforms in other states, opens the door for more victims to pursue civil law suits instead of reporting to police. In civil cases, it has to be established that it is “more likely than not” that the abuse occurred. Victims can file suits to seek compensation for medical, legal or mental health costs or even gaps in employment due to depression or anxiety.

​The cost of sexual assaultSome victims who take advantage of the Child Victims Act may be believed for the first time and that may help them heal from their trauma. But for many, statutes of limitation reforms are too late.

tax cuts/regulations???

The Zero for Zeros campaign is asking companies with pro-equality records to stop bankrolling the fiercest opponents of equality.

CASEY QUINLAN, JOSH ISRAEL - ThinkprogressJUL 18, 2019, 11:35 AM

​By almost all measures, AT&T has been a stalwart supporter of LGBTQ equality for a long time. It has protected workers from sexual orientation discrimination since 1975. It sponsors the Trevor Project to help LGBTQ youth in crisis. It received a perfect 100 score from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in its annual equality index, ranking among the nation’s most inclusive places to work.

By any measure, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is among the nation’s most anti-LGBTQ bigots.

He defended bans on same-sex marriage as “sound public policy” and spearheaded the effort to block the elected government in Washington, D.C., from enacting marriage equality. He boasted of receiving a “True Blue Award” from the Family Research Council, a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)-designated anti-LGBT hate group. He consistently earns a 0 score on HRC’s congressional scorecard, ranking among the lawmakers most virulently opposing equality.

Yet, AT&T’s corporate political action committee has given tens of thousands of dollars to Jordan’s campaigns since 2010, helping bankroll the re-elections of a man who HRC once inducted into its anti-equality “Hall of Shame” for “proactively [working] to undermine existing legal protections and promote anti-LGBT discrimination.” And AT&T’s PAC has given more than $400,000 to other firmly anti-LGBTQ members of Congress in recent years.​AT&T did not respond to a ThinkProgress request for comment about its support for Jordan and other opponents of equality. But it is hardly alone in its seemingly contradictory political giving.

A new activist pressure group called Zero for Zeros aims to change that. In recent days, it has released a list of more than two dozen major companies with 100 HRC scores, urging them to stop their donations to Jordan and other lawmakers with zero HRC ratings.

Lane Hudson, a longtime LGBTQ-rights activist, is campaign manger of the effort. He explained in an interview with ThinkProgress that “to really glean out the worst of the worst, the ones who take extra actions to work against our community, the ones that really fight against equality,” the group filtered the people with zero ratings even further. After picking 10 U.S. representatives and 19 senators with the worst ratings, the group found 49 had used their corporate PACs to support the worst.

Hudson explained that he understands that companies make PAC contributions based on more than just LGBTQ issues. “[I]t doesn’t surprise me,” he said, that the companies’ corporate PACs are “supporting politicians that are connected to those other issues.” But, he added, it is important that these companies hold lawmakers to a higher standard.

“What we’re asking those companies to do is to apply their corporate values to their political giving,” he said. “They create safe and welcoming workspaces for their LGBT employees. They market to LGBT customers. They support their LGBT employee resource groups. They march in full force at [Pride events] around America and sometimes abroad … These are companies that have been with us for a long time and helped us win a lot of the progress that we made and their political contributions to these people threaten to undermine everything we’ve done, and undermine their own efforts.”

On Tuesday, Zero for Zeros released a list of 14 technology and lifestyle companies with otherwise stellar pro-equality records, but also a history of PAC contributions to anti-LGBTQ extremists. On Wednesday, it released an additional list of 13 financial services giants in the same category.---Amazon, AT&T, Cigna Corp, Cisco Systems, Compass Bank, Dell Inc., Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Facebook, Google, JPMorgan Chase, KPMG, Mastercard, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Oracle, PNC Financial Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sap America, T-Mobile, and Visa did not respond as of publication time.

HRC national press secretary Sarah McBride told ThinkProgress in a statement that while the corporate equality index “captures LGBTQ-inclusive policies, practices and benefits, there isn’t a one size fits all way to consistently score companies on the scope and impact of their political donations.”

“We do monitor employers’ contributions to anti-LGBTQ ballot measures and organizations whose primary mission includes anti-LGBTQ advocacy,” she added. “It is important for reporting like this that asks tough questions of corporations and brings these donations into the public discussion. The Corporate Equality Index is a critical tool for advancing LGBTQ equality in the workplace, but it is not the only tool.”

Hudson said he and his team are talking with the companies and are hopeful that they will take anti-LGBTQ extremism into account more in their future PAC giving.

“This effort is meant to not be an attack on these companies, because we view them as our allies. They have invested in their employees and customers and been with us in these court battles,” Hudson said. “We sent letters to their CEOs and I also reached out to the government affairs staff and asking them for a conversation about this, so we can talk about why it’s important not only to the LGBTQ community but to their employees and their customers and to the overall movement in general and how it can be beneficial to their business.”​

July 13, 2019​ By Common Dreams - Raw Story

“We will keep fighting this unconstitutional ban to make sure Oklahomans have access to the best medical treatment.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights on Friday announced its intention to keep fighting after an Oklahoma court upheld a ban on a common abortion procedure.

“We cannot overstate the harm this decision will have on women in Oklahoma,” said Julie Rikelman, litigation director at the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), in a statement. CRR filed the suit on behalf of Tulsa Women’s Clinic to have the law stricken down.

Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong’s ruling upholds House Bill 1721, a 2015 law that “targets a procedure known as dilation and evacuation (D and E), which is frequently used during second-trimester abortions,” as Rewire‘s legislative tracker noted.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has called D and E “evidence-based and medically preferred because it results in the fewest complications for women compared to alternative procedures.” Efforts to ban any particular type of procedure, the group said, “represent legislative interference at its worst: doctors will be forced, by ill-advised, unscientifically motivated policy, to provide lesser care to patients. This is unacceptable.”

As CRR said in its statement, Truong’s ruling bucks a trend: other state courts ruling on similar bans in Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, and Texas blocked them from taking effect. The U.S. Supreme Court also said last month it would not hear Alabama’s appeal to keep its similar law on the books.

“Politicians should never take medical options off the table for pregnant patients,” said Rikelman. The Oklahoma law, she said, “bans care that women need and doctors recommend, and is part of a national strategy by anti-abortion politicians to push abortion care out of reach by passing hundreds of laws that limit access. We will keep fighting this unconstitutional ban to make sure Oklahomans have access to the best medical treatment.”

Macy’s Facing Lawsuit Over Its ‘Discriminatory’ Criminal History Screening After Firing Employee with Misdemeanor

By Lauren Floyd - Atlanta Black StarJune 27, 2019

Macy’s Inc. is facing a discrimination claim after the company fired an employee with a misdemeanor conviction.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and some partner organizations filed a lawsuit on that employee’s behalf Wednesday. The suit is claiming Macy’s used discriminatory hiring practices to disproportionately disqualify not only the former employee but other Black and Latino job applicants.

Jenetta Rolfer, the former Macy’s employee named as a plaintiff in the suit, said she was hired to work at a Macy’s Credit Granting Department in New York in October 2018 but was fired weeks later when the company found a misdemeanor conviction in her background report.

Rolfer said because of a decade-old traffic related incident, she was fired abruptly without receiving a copy of the background report or notice of her rights.

“I was devastated to be fired over information in my background check that is unrelated to my ability to be a productive employee,” she said.

Although Macy’s chief diversity officer Shawn Outler said he can’t comment on pending litigation, he told Atlanta Black Star in an emailed statement that the company is in adherence with federal, state and local laws and is committed to “ensuring the safety and security” of staff and customers.

​It partnered with Outten & Golden law firm and the New York City nonprofit Youth Represent to file the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

President of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sherrilyn Ifill called Macy’s criminal history screening policies “overly restrictive and punitive.”

“Macy’s must amend its discriminatory criminal history screening policy and create more economic opportunities for deserving Americans,” Ifill said.

using christianity to discriminate!!!

Supreme Court sends gay wedding cake dispute back to state courts

The Oregon case raises the same issues as the Colorado baker a year ago who refused to provide a custom cake for the wedding of two men.

June 17, 2019, 6:50 AM PDTBy Pete Williams - NBC News

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday dealt a partial victory to the owners of an Oregon bakery who were fined for refusing to provide a cake for a lesbian commitment ceremony.

The justices wiped out lower court rulings against the bakers and sent the case back for another round of hearings.

The legal dispute raised the same issues that arose a year ago in the case of a Colorado baker who refused to provide a custom cake to celebrate the wedding of two men. That baker, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cake, said it would require him to act against his religious views and violate his right of free speech.

The court failed then to resolve the central issues in his case, ruling instead on narrow grounds unique to him. Religiously affiliated groups were hoping the justices would use the Oregon case to answer the hard questions it avoided last year. But sending the case back to the lower courts, with instructions to reconsider their rulings in light of the Colorado case, gives the lower courts very little to go on.

Boyden Gray, a Washington, D.C., lawyer representing the Oregon bakers, said the Supreme Court should decide whether its 2015 gay marriage ruling "can be wielded as a shield in defense of same-sex unions but also — as in this case — a sword to attack others for adhering to traditional religious beliefs about marriage."

The dispute began in 2013 when Rachel Cryer asked the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in suburban Portland for a cake to celebrate her commitment to another woman. Aaron Klein, who owned the bakery with his wife, Melissa, said creating a custom cake for a same-sex ceremony would violate the couple's religious beliefs. When Rachel's mother later urged him to reconsider, he quoted from the Bible's Book of Leviticus and said same-sex relations were "an abomination."

Rachel and her fiancee, Laurel Bowman, filed a complaint with Oregon's Board of Labor and Industries. It found that the bakery's owners violated a state law forbidding businesses to discriminate against customers on the basis of, among other factors, sexual orientation. State courts upheld the finding and a $135,000 fine against the Kleins.

As Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cake did, the Kleins argued that their custom cakes are works of art deserving to be protected as free expression under the First Amendment. Requiring them to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, they said, would force them to express a view they oppose.

​Similar legal challenges have been brought by business owners who print invitations, shoot still photographs and videos, and arrange flowers but do not wish to provide their services for same-sex ceremonies. A total of 21 states including Oregon and Colorado have public accommodation laws that outlaw discriminating on basis of sexual orientation.

One issue in the Oregon case, which also came up in last year's Masterpiece Cake case, is whether a cake is a work of art. The bakers said they spend hours designing and constructing their one-of-a-kind cakes. But the Oregon Court of Appeals found that "even when custom-designed for a ceremonial occasion, they are still cakes made to be eaten." It also said people who attend a wedding might consider the cake an expression of the views of the honored couple, not the bakers.

The state urged the Supreme Court not to take the case, arguing that the lower courts ruled correctly. "Baking is conduct, not speech," the state said in its court filings. "A bakery open to the public has no right to discriminate against customers on the basis of their sexual orientation."

Requiring businesses to treat their customers equally, regardless of sexual orientation, does not compel support for gay marriage "any more than the law compels support for religion by requiring equal treatment for all faiths," the state said.

Transgender Women Challenge State Laws Blocking Name Changes

BY Mike Ludwig, TruthoutPUBLISHED June 14, 2019

E​isha Love, a 30-year-old trans woman living in Chicago, was incarcerated for nearly four years after she and a friend were attacked at a gas station in 2012 by men hurling transphobic slurs. One assailant was injured as the two women attempted to flee in a car. Love’s case has been compared to that of CeCe McDonald and others who have faced harsh criminal charges for defending themselves against anti-trans violence: Transgender women and particularly trans women of color experience high rates of violence, police profiling and criminalization.

Love was subjected to more violence while she was imprisoned for years, awaiting trial in the Cook County Jail. Despite being a woman, Love was held in a maximum-security facility for men, and she lived with a target on her back. Jails and prisons are very dangerous places, and a federal survey released in 2014 found that more than a third of transgender prisoners experienced sexual violence. While incarcerated, Love was attacked by a guard who turned around and filed assault charges against her, but a judge sided with Love in that case. Love said in an interview that seeing the man in court was a trauma, on top of everything else.

Love, who was released in 2015 after accepting a plea deal, is an outspoken activist who has used her story to draw public attention to the criminalization of transgender women of color. Now she is fighting to topple another injustice: Laws preventing people with criminal records from changing their legal names. Love was convicted of a felony, and under Illinois law, people with felony convictions must wait 10 years before they can legally change their name. Love’s legal name, which signals that she was assigned male at birth, appears on her ID and other documents. This immediately outs her as transgender whenever she presents them, and may raise additional suspicions about her identity. This puts Love at risk of experiencing further discrimination and violence.

“Right now, people see me as Eisha Love, but at this moment in time, I am legally someone else, and I want to be legally who I am,” Love told Truthout in an interview.

Trans and non-binary people often change their name to one aligned with their gender identity, and it’s common to seek a legal name change so their identity is reflected on ID cards and other legal documents. Love is one of several transgender women challenging an Illinois statute that prevents them from changing their legal names because they have been criminalized in the past. Similar lawsuits were recently filed on behalf of transgender plaintiffs in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and a legal team in Texas is planning a challenge to name-change restrictions there. Lark Mulligan, an attorney for Chicago’s Transformative Justice Law Project (TJLP) who filed the lawsuit in Illinois, said the legal challenges are part of a “coordinated movement” to change state laws that create barriers for trans people seeking to change their legal names.

“This is a growing movement,” Mulligan said in an interview. “Illinois is not the only state that has restrictions … but we do have some of the most punitive.”

Truthout recently reached Mulligan while she was helping with a monthly “name change mobilization” in Chicago, where transgender and non-binary people seeking to change their legal names can gather in a common space and access free legal assistance. Even for those who have not been criminalized, there are several barriers to changing a legal name in Chicago, including fees, paperwork and a requirement that the name-change petition be published in a newspaper or other similar publication for three consecutive weeks. Mulligan says it typically costs about $550 to change a name in Chicago, and the process varies in different states and locales.

Mulligan said TJLP recently reached a notable milestone and celebrated legally changing 1,000 names over the past decade. The lawsuit challenging the Illinois name-change statute grew out of this work.

“Every single month, at least one person comes to the name-change mobilization that we have to turn away because they are not eligible,” Mulligan said. “It’s really upsetting, and disproportionately impacts transgender and gender non-binary people, particularly Black trans women, who are disproportionally criminalized and overcharged and over-sentenced.”

Laws restricting legal name changes for people with criminal records vary from state to state and were probably originally intended to prevent fraud and evasion of criminal registries, Mulligan said. (This is unnecessary even for the system’s purposes, since law enforcement can track people in multiple ways besides their first and last name.) While some states have few restrictions, or restrictions that only pertain to certain charges such as fraud and sexual offenses, Illinois requires anyone with a felony conviction to wait a decade after their sentence before changing their legal name.

Transgender people are disproportionally criminalized: For example, transgender women are often profiled as sex workers by police, and anti-trans groups have falsely painted trans people as perpetrators of sexual violence in an effort to prevent them from using public bathrooms that correspond to their gender. Given the prevalence of felony convictions among trans people, name change barriers take a heavy toll both during and after incarceration.

Love and Mulligan argue that the First Amendment guarantees transgender people the right to be addressed as they wish and change their legal names, and conviction-based barriers violate this fundamental right. Beyond this violation, there are many other problems that can arise when a legal name cannot be changed. Cisgender people may take for granted that their identity is taken at face value when asked for a driver’s license or other identification. However, consider, for example, a trans woman whose ID shows her picture, but lists a name that sounds like it belongs to a man. People may doubt her identity, or treat her differently for being trans. This is one reason why people jump through so many hoops to take their “deadname,” or name assigned at birth, off their government documents, according to Mulligan.

“That deadname can out a person to anybody who sees that ID,” Mulligan said.

In a 2017 white paper, Mulligan describes two women — one cisgender and one transgender — who apply for jobs and food stamp benefits, two resources that can be crucial after incarceration. The cisgender woman has no trouble when she presents her ID to her caseworker and potential manager at a restaurant. However, when the transgender woman shows her ID, there is a picture of a woman next to the name “Thomas,” rather than her chosen name. The caseworker accuses her of attempting to defraud the government, and then asks invasive questions about her genitalia when the woman explains she is transgender. Similar problems arise at her job interview, and the offer of employment is rescinded.

“Applying for jobs, applying for housing, entering government buildings — there are so many times we present our IDs,” Mulligan said. “We live in such a police surveillance state, and that puts trans people at risk.”

Transgender women of color experience extremely high rates of poverty and discrimination and are often in need of government services, but they are also more likely to be criminalized and lose their right to change their name in a state like Illinois. It’s a dangerous Catch-22 in a world where anti-trans discrimination is common. A 2015 survey found that 28 percent of transgender people living in Illinois reported being fired from their job, being denied a promotion, or not being hired because of their gender identity. One in five had experienced housing discrimination, such as being evicted from their homes or denied housing, in the past year. Only 11 percent reported having all their IDs and documents changed to reflect the name and gender they prefer.

“I have to explain things to people and have to be looked at differently just because of [my ID],” Love said. “I have definitely experienced the discrimination in multiple ways, I have that happen in so many different ways.”

Of course, there are also deeply personal reasons for changing a legal name. Love has used her name since she was a teenager, and she said that she has worked hard to become the woman she is today. She wants other people to see her for who she is, but she is also demanding the freedom to be herself and see that reflected in every part of her life.

“This is who I worked to become. Let me be me, and let me be free to be who I am and who I say I am,” Love said. “I can’t complete Eisha Love if the documents are not saying who I am.”

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says term does not ‘reflect medical accuracy or clinical understanding’

Jessica Glenza in New YorkThe GuardianWed 5 Jun 2019 02.00 EDT

​America’s largest professional organization for doctors specializing in women’s health has come out against the term “fetal heartbeat bill” to describe abortion bans recently enacted by US states.

The president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists called the bills “arbitrary” bans not reflective of fetal development or science.

“Arbitrary gestational age bans on abortion at six weeks that use the term ‘heartbeat’ to define the gestational development being targeted do not reflect medical accuracy or clinical understanding,” said Dr Ted Anderson, president of ACOG. The organization represents 58,000 physicians across the US.

“Pregnancy and fetal development are a continuum. What is interpreted as a heartbeat in these bills is actually electrically induced flickering of a portion of the fetal tissue that will become the heart as the embryo develops,” Anderson said.

“Thus, ACOG does not use the term ‘heartbeat’ to describe these legislative bans on abortion because it is misleading language, out of step with the anatomical and clinical realities of that stage of pregnancy,” Anderson said. The ACOG president called on politicians to base policy on “science and evidence”.

​In addition, the Guardian has updated its style guide more accurately to reflect abortion bans spreading across the United States.

Instead of using “fetal heartbeat bills”, as the laws are often called by anti-abortion campaigners, the Guardian will make “six-week abortion ban” the preferred term for the laws, unless quoting someone, in order to better reflect the practical effect of the laws.

State abortion bans have been enacted from Ohio to Kentucky, in a new and severe strategy from rightwing groups pushing to make abortion illegal. The bans, dubbed “heartbeat” bills by supporters, have the practical effect of banning abortion before most women know they are pregnant.

Abortion is legal in all 50 states despite the bans. Anti-abortion campaigners hope the court battles will prompt the US supreme court to reconsider the 1973 landmark decision Roe v Wade, which legalized abortion. The laws are all expected to be challenged in court, and are highly unlikely ever to go into effect.

While states have long sought to heavily regulate abortion, outright bans on the procedure were once rare. Nevertheless, abortion care has not always remained accessible. Highly restrictive state regulations have driven many clinics out of business. There are six states that each have only one abortion clinic. In Missouri, the state’s last remaining abortion clinic is fighting the state health authorities in order to stay open.

Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr Sarah Horvath said that accurately describing the bans is important, to avoid confusion among patients and providers alike.

“I don’t think the coverage tends to line up with medical reality,” said Horvath. “No one seems to know what is allowed – and what isn’t – even when it’s medically appropriate,” she said.

Several state bans allow for criminal penalties for doctors performing abortions, including a 99-year penalty in Alabama. Physicians said the bans, if they ever went into effect, will have life-threatening consequences for women.

“There’s this noble ideal you all have,” she said about reporters, but added, “But one is a viewpoint, and one is science and medicine.”

US soccer players’ class action is for all women in USA: lawyer​Agence France-Presse - raw story08 MAY 2019 AT 06:02 ET

The USA women’s soccer team’s gender discrimination lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) will have ramifications for all women employed in the United States, their lawyer Jeffrey Kessler told AFP.

Kessler, speaking at the Sport Resolutions Annual Conference in London, said he was pessimistic of reaching an agreement before the US team start the defense of their title at the World Cup in France which gets underway on June 8.

Kessler, who is co-chair of international law firm Winston and Strawn’s antitrust/competition and sports law practices, said he had no hesitation in acting for the team, all of whose 28 members filed a discrimination lawsuit against the USSF in March seeking equal pay and working conditions to their less successful male counterparts.

– Wider implications –

“I embraced it,” he said. “Actually to me it is just the type of case I want to win because of the impact beyond my immediate clients – and it is the same reason the women want to do this case.

“They are not doing it just for themselves but for future generations as some of them will be retired when the matter is resolved.

He said the team had been “surprised” to read that USSF President Carlos Cordeiro had been taken aback that the issue of equal pay had been raised.

Kessler said the matter pre-dated a 2017 collective bargaining agreement which set an agreed contract structure, including guaranteed salary and benefits for the women players.

“The USSF are very well aware they had not dropped their complaint,” the 65-year-old American said.

They had asked for equal pay in bargaining and the USSF refused.

“The were left with a choice of either accepting the deal for less equal pay and playing or work stoppage in the sport and they decided it was more important to play and pursue the legal claim separately, which is what they did.”

– ‘Principle of equality’ –

Kessler says the facts of the suit speak for themselves.

“It is the clearest case of gender-based discrimination,” Kessler said.

“They have the same employer, exactly the same job.

​“The difference is the women indisputably are far more successful than the men not just in a competitive sense but also an economic sense.

“There is greater fan support, higher TV ratings the whole package is more valuable. Really it is not justified on any basis.”

Kessler says the women’s complaints go far beyond money.

“It is also about working conditions. They have far more games on artificial turf which is much more dangerous than grass,” he said.

“They have not got the same accommodation or travel in the same class.

“The USSF doesn’t expend as much effort and time on the women’s game.”

Kessler said the players had been nonplussed by Cordeiro’s insistence that he would love to resolve the matter.

“The players were very interested by that statement of trying to negotiate a solution,” said Kessler.

“They had absolutely tried that, inviting them (USSF) to have talks but they have yet to make a single settlement offer to the players.

“It is very difficult to have a settlement without a settlement offer and so, again, there is a big difference between public statements and what has actually happened.”

All this leads Kessler to conclude that the issue will not be resolved any time soon and that it could end up in court some time next year.

However, Kessler believes the USSF could do their image no end of good by conceding sooner.

“If I was the USSF I would agree to the principle of equality,” said Kessler, “They have the money to afford it.”

“They can embrace the issue and, with the World Cup looming, it would be very positive for the organisation. But they don’t seem to see it that way.”

After Florida's ex-felons won the right to vote, Republicans are taking it away

Election reform bill SB 7066 adds a provision that felons with restitution, fees or fines will not be allowed to cast a ballot

Khushbu Shahthe guardianFri 3 May 2019 19.26 EDT

​When two-thirds of Florida’s voters chose to restore voting rights to nearly 1.5 million ex-felons in the state last November, Karen Leicht thought she might get to vote again.

In 2010, Leicht pled guilty to charges related to international insurance fraud. That led to 30 months in federal prison, three months of probation, and when she got out, $59m dollars in restitution she has to pay back. She also lost the right to vote. But, she says, “I was free.”

However, after Amendment 4 was passed last year, reinstating voter rights for convicted felons, except those convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense, Leicht got her right to vote back.

But now Florida’s Republican lawmakers are trying to impose more specific requirements before former felons can vote, which could impact many thousands of Florida voters, with one news report suggesting the figure could be more than half a million voters.

This week, the Republican-controlled state senate voted along party lines, passing election reform bill SB 7066, which adds a provision that felons with restitution, fees and fines to pay still will not be able to vote.

On Friday, it was passed by Florida’s House and if signed into law by the Republican governor, will go into effect later this year.

This could mean Leicht won’t be able to register to vote. “I’m like a citizen again, except for I still can’t vote,” Leicht told lawmakers at a Florida senate hearing in March, in opposition to this measure.

​Opponents say Florida’s restrictive felony disenfranchisement laws can be traced back to the end of the civil war and are linked to racial discrimination. The state, then an ex-confederate one, rejected the 14th amendment to the US constitution in 1868, adding a provision that banned male citizens with felony convictions from voting, targeting African Americans through the “Black Code”, a list of crimes that designated even “disrespect to an employer” as a felony.

By the 1870s, an estimated 95% of convicts in ex-confederate states in the south were black.

Florida, according to a 2016 report from the Sentencing Project, accounts for nearly half of the disenfranchised post-sentence population across the United States. More than 20% of African Americans in Florida, the report adds, couldn’t vote before the 2018 amendment passed.

Being able to limit even a few thousand people in Florida from voting, could impact elections in the battleground state. With 29 electoral votes up for grabs, Florida is the largest swing state in presidential elections.

In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by just 1.2% of the votes, a little over 100,000 votes. In 2012, former president Barack Obama beat Republican candidate Mitt Romney by 0.9%, with just more than 73,000 votes.

Even though the vote to add provisions to the bill are happening along party lines, Michael Morse, a PhD candidate at Harvard University, who is working on a dissertation focused on Amendment 4, said Republican lawmakers don’t seem to be paying attention to voters in their own party. While African Americans are disproportionately disenfranchised in general, Morse said, the majority of ex-felons in Florida are white.

“A lot of the people impacted are white and they’re certainly not all Democrats,” Morse said.

He points to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, the grassroots group that led the effort in rallying the state’s voters to vote in favor of Amendment 4. The political director is a white Republican and the president, Desmond Meade, is a black Democrat.

In a written statement after the bill was approved by the House, Meade called the election reform bill’s passage disappointing but said the group would “continue to move forward in the spirit of creating a more inclusive and vibrant democracy for all by seeking to register qualified returning citizens in Florida”.

Kansas court bolsters abortion rights, blocks ban

By JOHN HANNA - ap​4/26/19

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ highest court ruled for the first time Friday that the state constitution protects abortion rights and blocked a first-in-the-nation ban on a common second trimester method for ending pregnancies.

The state Supreme Court’s ruling represented a big victory for abortion rights supporters in a state with a Republican-controlled Legislature hostile to their cause. It comes with other, GOP-controlled states moving to ban most abortions in direct challenges to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortions across the nation.

The Kansas decision prevents the state from enforcing a 2015 law that could have greatly limited second trimester abortions. But even worse for abortion opponents, the ruling clears the way for legal challenges to a string of abortion restrictions approved in recent years by state lawmakers under past Republican governors.

The court said vague language protecting “equal and inalienable rights” in the first section of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights grants a “natural right of personal autonomy” that includes the right to “control one’s own body.” Because that right is independent of the U.S. Constitution, Kansas courts could strike down restrictions that have been upheld by the federal courts.

“This right allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life — decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy,” the court’s unsigned majority opinion said.

Justices ruled 6-1 on the language in state constitution. Justice Caleb Stegall, the only appointee of a conservative Republican governor, declared in his dissenting opinion that the ruling “fundamentally alters the structure of our government” to “arbitrarily grant a regulatory reprieve” for abortion.

The ruling immediately prompted abortion opponents to call for amending the state constitution. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who took office in January, is a strong abortion-rights supporter, but the Legislature still has solid anti-abortion majorities.

“The liberal, activist Supreme Court showed just how out of touch they are with Kansas values,” Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican, said in a statement issued minutes after the decision. “We understand that life is sacred, beginning at conception, and we must always stand and defend the most vulnerable among us, the unborn.”

​In previous cases, Kansas’ highest court avoided the question, allowing U.S. Supreme Court decisions to determine what restrictions would be allowed. But a state district court judge ruled in issuing an injunction to block the 2015 law that the Kansas Constitution grants its own protections.

The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court for a trial on the lawsuit challenging the law but kept the judge’s injunction in place, saying the lawsuit was likely to succeed in invalidating the law.

The decision Friday comes two years after the Kansas court heard arguments from attorneys, an unusually long delay for a ruling. Iowa’s Supreme Court issued a similar decision in 2018.

​The Kansas Bill of Rights says residents’ natural rights include “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and that “free governments” were created for their “equal protection and benefit.”

The state’s attorneys argued there is no evidence that when the state constitution was written in 1859, its drafters contemplated abortion rights. In the Kansas Territory, abortion was illegal except to save a woman’s life, and that policy carried over in the new state’s laws.

The Kansas law at issue would bar physicians from using forceps or similar instruments on a live fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces, using the non-medical term “dismemberment abortion” to describe the procedure. Such instruments are commonly used in dilation and evacuation procedure, which the Center for Reproductive Rights has described as the safest and most common abortion procedure in the U.S. in the second trimester.

The Kansas law was model legislation drafted by the National Right to Life Committee. The group says similar bans have been enacted in 10 other states — Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky, Ohio and North Dakota.Abortion providers reported performing 484 dilation and evacuation procedures in Kansas in 2018, according to state health department statistics. That was 6.9% of the state’s total abortions; most pregnancies were terminated during the first trimester.

The lawsuit against the Kansas law was filed by Drs. Herbert Hodes and Traci Nauser, a father and daughter who operated a women’s health center together in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park. Hodes has since retired.

After the district judge’s ruling put the law on hold, the Kansas Court of Appeals split 7-7, allowing the judge’s decision to stand.

Supreme Court Says Discrimination Is OK — If You’re a Muslim

BY Huma Yasin, TruthoutPUBLISHED April 7, 2019

A​t the end of March, the Supreme Court allowed the stay of Patrick Murphy’s execution on the basis that his Buddhist spiritual adviser was not permitted to be present during the execution — a right granted to prisoners of other faiths. Only a month before, the Supreme Court effectively denied the same rights to stay Domineque Ray, a Muslim on death row.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion granting Murphy’s stay, wrote, “As this Court has repeatedly held, governmental discrimination against religion — in particular, discrimination against religious persons, religious organizations, and religious speech — violates the Constitution.” Hypocritically, Kavanaugh voted to vacate the Eleventh Circuit’s stay on Ray’s execution, in a nearly identical case, ostensibly rendering judgment on the case based on a procedural technicality rather than the substantive constitutional issue.

In fact, Justice Elena Kagan’s scathing defense in Ray’s case illustrates that the substantive constitutional issue in both cases was identical: “A Christian prisoner may have a minister of his own faith accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites. But if an inmate practices a different religion — whether Islam, Judaism, or any other — he may not die with a minister of his faith by his side. That treatment goes against the Establishment Clause’s core principle of denominational neutrality.”

​Even in death, Muslim prisoners are treated differently than their counterparts of other faiths — as a distinct, disenfranchised class on the basis of their religious identity.

For example, three incarcerated Muslims filed a federal lawsuit in 2017 alleging that prison guards at the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado discharged pepper spray on them after they arrived at a multipurpose room to observe weekly prayer services.

Last year, Muslim prisoner Sherone Long filed a lawsuit in New Jersey alleging religious discrimination, stating, “In honesty, with my experience in this jail, the administration is biased towards Muslims … We can’t get prayer rugs, kufees or oils.”

Muslim prisoners in Alaska were forced to file a lawsuit in May 2018 to ensure they were provided enough calories in the month of Ramadan — a month when Muslims are religiously required to fast from both food and water during the daylight hours — to avoid starving.

Muslim prisoners are also singled out and treated more harshly as a direct result of their religious identity.

In April 2017, at the Big Sandy Penitentiary in Inez, Kentucky, Shain Duka and a group of other Muslim prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for months for what staff claimed was a “group demonstration.”

​Prison dynamics often compel those incarcerated to maintain a group affiliation within the prison to ensure their own protection. It is commonplace to find a Muslim cohort within the prison population, and in this case, Duka claimed the Muslim group was singled out without evidence of wrongdoing. The charge was ultimately appealed and expunged in favor of the prisoners.

Though the expungement should have mandated Duka’s immediate re-entry to general population, he continued to be held in solitary confinement for an additional year. In November 2018, 19 months after Duka was wrongfully placed in solitary, he was transferred to the ADX federal prison in Florence, Colorado, despite three previous failed ADX referral attempts during that period.

ADX is a maximum-security prison known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” A former warden referred to the prison as a “clean version of hell.” Prisoners are held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Their entire cell, bed included, is made of concrete.

The unrelenting insistence of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to single Duka out for punishment is troubling, particularly in light of the fact that Duka’s unit manager, Hope Chance, explicitly requested a decrease in security status, from high to intermediate, months before he was wrongfully placed in solitary confinement. In fact, Chance stated that Duka had “maintained clear conduct since 2013.” In the five years Duka had been in custody at Big Sandy, he’d received only one incident report for allowing a fellow prisoner to use his phone to make a call.

With no substantive evidence provided to Duka, the warden at Big Sandy requested an ADX transfer, claiming that Duka had “established a leadership role in the Muslim population” and that he was a “supporter of the more radical side of Islam.” According to Duka, he was provided no evidence of this claim. When he submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking evidence, he received nearly 80 pages of heavily redacted information.

Tragically, while Duka was held in solitary confinement, where communications are heavily restricted, his family called the prison repeatedly so that he could speak to his dying father, according to Duka’s brother, Burim Duka. The requests were refused. After Duka’s father died, Burim explained, administration at the prison demanded a death certificate before allowing Duka to receive a phone call informing him of his father’s death.

Citing “national security,” the BOP has attempted to justify its excessive restrictions on the liberties of Muslim prisoners. These restrictions inhibit their ability to practice their religion, including having access to religious materials or being denied observance of the Sabbath. Yet statistics disprove the BOP’s “radicalization” theory.

There is no indication discrimination against incarcerated Muslims will change.

The only significant difference between Ray and Murphy is their religious identity, proving once again, that in practice, Muslims are not entitled to constitutional protection.

A​fter emotional testimony, a forceful show of opposition from leaders in the state’s business community and more than an hour of floor debate, the Texas Senate on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a sweeping religious refusals bill, a priority proposal for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that LGTBQ advocates have called a “license to discriminate.”

The measure, Lubbock Republican Charles Perry’s Senate Bill 17, would allow occupational license holders like social workers or lawyers to cite “sincerely held religious beliefs” when their licenses are at risk due to professional behavior or speech. It would also prevent licensing boards from enacting regulations that burden “an applicant’s or license holder’s free exercise of religion.” The bill does not protect police officers, first responders or doctors who refuse to provide life-saving care.

After a heated debate, the measure passed on a 19–12 initial vote, with one Democrat, Sen. Eddie Lucio, voting for it, and one Republican, Sen. Kel Seliger, voting against. It requires one more vote in the Senate before it can be sent to the Texas House for debate.Perry said the bill provides a defense for licensed professionals who find themselves before credentialing boards based on conduct or speech motivated by their “sincerely held religious beliefs” — a pre-emptive protection for religious employees at a time when, he claimed, religion is under attack.

But LGBTQ advocates and Democrats have criticized the bill as an attempt to give cover to those who would deny critical services to members of the LGBTQ community. Last week, leaders from major businesses like Amazon, Facebook and Google, as well as tourism officials from some of the state’s biggest cities, came out in force against the bill. Discriminating against LGBTQ communities is bad for business, they said.

Patrick, who has tagged Perry’s bill as one of his top 30 legislative priorities, defended it in the face of the business community’s criticism.

“Senate Bill 17 will ensure that anyone can practice their profession in Texas without being forced to compromise their religious faith,” Patrick spokesman Alejandro Garcia said last week.

Equality Texas, an advocacy group, called the bill this session’s “number one threat to the LGBTQ community.”

“Dan Patrick has doubled down on his attack on the LGBTQ community, moving out of bathrooms and into every single licensed profession in Texas,” said Samantha Smoot, the organization’s interim executive director. “SB 17 would create a religious litmus test, and open the doors to discrimination and to real harm to LGBTQ Texans. Dan Patrick has launched a whole new war against LGBTQ people.”During a lengthy floor debate, six Democrats and one Republican echoed those concerns.

“What if somebody said, ‘I am not going to provide a service because you are a gay couple?’” asked Seliger, an Amarillo Republican. “If somebody said, ‘You’re Muslim, I’m not going to provide this service’?… Doesn’t this bill essentially provide a defense of that discrimination or discriminatory behavior?”

​And Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, pointed to history, when “the practice of faith has been tied to a lot of hideous practices” — like prohibiting interracial marriages.

“The reality is that a lot of people have done things that were not consistent with being a Christian” while claiming religious motivation, West said.

Perry insisted that “this bill does nothing to promote any illegal or discriminatory activity.”

“It’s not licensing discrimination at any level,” he said later in the debate.In what he characterized as an effort to codify that, Sen. José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat, proposed an amendment to the bill that would explicitly prohibit professionals from refusing service based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Perry put it to a vote; the amendment failed 12–19.

“You know that saying, ‘You can put lipstick on a pig?’” asked Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston. “Sen. Perry, this is a discrimination bill.”When it came time to vote, Miles’ answer was clear: “No!” he shouted from the back of the chamber.